Recognising stress in teenager, the signs aren’t always what you think.

My teenager has recently been pushing the limits. He’s not doing any of the heavy stuff just yet (or at least not to our knowledge) but, he’s being doing “just” what he can get away with, taking more than he’s giving, saying he’s too tired to help out, shutting himself away behind his head phones when he ventures into family territory of the kitchen and staying in his room to chat with his friends (online obviously not in person, duh).

When it got to the point I was frustrated and feeling angry with some choices he was making, it was time to have a family meeting to address all our feelings. My husband was on board, so we spoke about what was going on and what changes were needed. It came to light he was feeling low and was shutting himself away and not interacting, because he needed time to himself. Being happy around friends all day, he was finding exhausting. His laid back attitude and not taking responsibility was a cover up to his negative thoughts and stress. He didn’t understand why he felt this way, because he said he had nothing to be sad about. He had great friends, doing well at school, loved his home and hobbies, but still felt low.

As a counsellor and stress management coach, it’s hard to see your loved ones going through struggles, because a lot of the time they don’t reach out because they know you have ideas and solutions as you’ve seen it a hundred times before. So I resisted offering a solution and just listened. I listened to how he felt. I listened until he was ready to find his solution. I said talk about how you feel, especially if you don’t understand it. There’s no right or wrong way to feel.

What to do

One thing I will say, keep communication open as much as possible, try not to judge what they say. Listen to understand, not to react.

When someone around you has low energy, want to shut away, come home and get into bed. Get them to fully acknowledge that they feel that way, accept and honour those feelings, they have every right to feel that way if they want to. But get them to ask themselves, “do I want to stay feeling like this?”

If the answer is no, then do the complete opposite of what they have been doing.

• Do 10 star jumps
• Put trainers on and run to the end of the street,
• Knock on a neighbours door and offer to cut their lawn or walk their dog.
• Do something active, even if it’s only 10 minutes.

Then ask them to notice how they feel. Sometimes breaking the thought pattern with something random, can be enough to change how you feel.

Make a time to factor this into their day, everyday. Exercise is positive stress, which your mind and body needs to stay strong and well. Go with them, so you’re both enjoying a positive experience. Let them talk, or not talk if that’s what they want. Don’t use it as a time to lecture, deal with your own feelings about the situation with a friend or seek professional help yourself, or book a calming massage. Diffusing Lavender therapeutic blend essential oil, could be what you and your teenager need to calm and refocus.

Recognising stress

Stress doesn’t always manifest itself in the way you think it will. The stereotypical white collar worker, at his desk, mounds of paperwork, deadlines, red in the face, on his second heart attack, isn’t the only way stress is shown.
Children feel stress too. They show it in similar ways to adults, shutting down emotionally, feeling tired, over loaded, blaming others, getting angry, sleeping a lot, not being able to sleep, not taking anything seriously and laughing all the time, is also a cover up for how they’re really feeling.

The point I’m trying to make here. How we feel is our responsibility. Your teenager needs to learn that they control their mind and thoughts, their mind doesn’t control them unless they allow it.

If we see negative feeling as weeds, they can take over your garden if you don’t first of all notice them, then do something about them.

Keeping their eye on the prize

Positive thoughts and feelings need love and attention. Keeping your eye on the prize of how you want to feel, what you want in your life and what steps you need to make to get there. It can be uncomfortable recognising this, never mind actually doing anything about it. But the only way to the other side is through. Avoiding or going around it, doesn’t deal with it and certainly doesn’t eradicate it. A personal trainer I know has a great saying “be comfortable with the uncomfortable” using energy to work towards what you do want, instead of using energy putting up with what you don’t.

A lesson for all of us. Be grateful for what you have in your life right now, especially the little things. Be thankful for all your experiences, because they’ve made you who you are today. Use that knowledge to help yourself and others to have the best life they can. Reach out to other people, we’re social being and we need interaction in our lives.

As for my son, we’ve set guidelines in place for him to engage more, no headphones in family areas, communicate and socialise with family, even if it’s not the most exciting part of his day. It’s important to create a neural pathway that siblings, though annoying, are not going away and the more you put into a relationship, the more you get out.
So tonight we’re going to the beach to surf and have a laugh. That’s his happy place, find yours, because you’re worth it.

Whether you live with someone or have it within yourself, you have to ask yourself whether you’re a helper or an enabler.

Negative thoughts and feelings are a natural function of a healthy mind. It’s there to keep us safe from harm. Shall I step off this ladder, no it’s dangerous, shall I jump in this freezing rough sea, no I’ll probably drown. It’s good to ask your mind questions, because it likes to work out solutions to your problems. But with depressive and anxious thoughts, it can be like a washing machine, going around and around, over and over the same point, bringing in new references to why you should be feeling this low, because he said this, she did that, life’s unfair, they died, and so on.

When you witness this everyday in someone you love, it can be heartbreaking. I know all about this, as most of my close family members have had depression and negative thoughts, I’ve lived with it and suffered along with them. But it’s like someone addicted to drugs or alcohol, until they want to help themselves, you are powerless. You can take someone to rehab, but you can’t do the work for them to address the reasons why they got addicted in the first place. Now a few people out there will be outraged that I can compare a drug addict to a depressed person. But what’s the difference? Do you think a drug addict woke up one day and thought, hey I’m feeling on top of my game, I think I’ll go out and get myself some drugs. No, they most likely have experienced difficult circumstances, family issues, hardship, depressive thoughts, been constantly let down, thrown out of home, family turned their back on them, many different factors until they thought, hey, I want to feel something different to this and drugs gave them the release they needed at the time.

I’ve counselled and worked with teenagers and adults who have a difficult relationship with drugs and alcohol, and it’s almost the same story as counselling and working with people experiencing depression, except the drug addict has found a change, has actually thought I’ve had enough of this. They most likely didn’t have a loving partner beside them, with kids that adored them, a mother and father that would do anything for them. So drugs were their answer.

The Causes

So why does depression start? Depression is a series of negative thought patterns, behaviours and exposure to stress. Like weeds in the garden, if left to grow, it will take over and this will become ‘normal’ and all the beautiful flowers and happy thoughts don’t see any light, so wither away. It’s not that they’re not there, you have thousands, even millions more happy experiences than sad, it’s just the negative ones are stronger feelings with more emotional juice in them, and get all the attention. A happy experience is breathing in fresh air, a smile on someone’s face, a green field, a tree coming into blossom, but without practice, we don’t allow ourselves to feel them as a positive, we just see it as nothing.

You can be going along nicely, happy childhood, married, children, good but stressful job, social life, then BAM! Like been hit by a truck filled with negative thoughts.

Our brain is like a filing system, each experience is stored, we have a reference library that take us to the memory, through many different pathways. As we get older, we do not have the energy to contain the negative experiences anymore, like holding down numerous beach balls under the water’s surface, after a while it becomes exhausting. Also when we’re young and carefree you tend not to dwell on the past.

One scenario I have seen many times. When you have children and they reach an age where something traumatic has happened, maybe your father could have died when you were 6 years old, or even something happened you don’t consciously remember. You can think you’re totally fine about it, but as your son, daughter or even niece or nephew reaches that age, familiar thoughts and feelings arise from your subconscious memory, you may feel uncomfortable and begin to get stressed. Or you may begin to feel low, but cannot pin it to anything in particular. As your mind and body feel out of balance, causing you to act on your stress response, you may use one or more of the five F’s. You may anger quickly (fight), you might shut yourself away (flight), completely shutdown (freeze) make silly jokes to deflect the situation (funny) or you may shut down completely (faint).
Prolonged exposure to negative thoughts and feelings, creates a pathway in your mind so it becomes normal to feel that way. You almost forget how to feel good. Especially if you don’t socialise or exercise anymore due to feeling low, you won’t be getting the top up of endorphins from having a good laugh with friends or the excitement of a sporting event.

Just remember, you are not broken, you’re a complete success. It’s just you’re doing something you no longer want to do. Learning techniques on how to deal with negative thought patterns is essential to finding a solution. Each person is unique and this needs to be acknowledged. I would work with one person in a different manner to another. We all have a belief system about ourself and the world we live in. Looking at the negative thought for what it is, a thought, then acknowledging it and what it means, then releasing it, and switching to a positive thought and feeling. This halts that particular thought pathway and redirects it to a positive neural pathway, resulting in a good feeling.

When we run from the left hand side of our brain, negative thoughts can spiral. Bringing in more creative and positive right hand brain thoughts, helps to disperse the negative.

It takes practice and determination. But remember it’s only one thought at a time. Instead of training your body to get fitter, you’re training your mind to become stronger and think the way you want it to. Your mind does not control you, it is a thinking system and you control your thoughts. Halting a negative one before it has time to take route and grow, simply by saying “STOP. I no longer need to feel this way, I am safe, I am here now, not back there, I am an adult and I am in control of how I feel, I’m not in the past, it’s not real, it’s just a thought”.

If you are living or are close to a negative thinker, when they start to say something, you can acknowledge what they say and then compliment them, or do something unexpected like give them a hug or kiss, say how fantastic they are. This alone can distract from the negative thought. You also have to remember not to feed the negative thought as you then become an enabler, saying “oh I know, you have it so hard and remember the time when this happened, it was so bad”.

It’s very important to look after yourself if you’re in a relationship with a depressive thought taker, because you can also become down. As with a drug addict, if they promise to get help and do nothing, you have to ask yourself is this the life I want? To be with someone who has no intention of trying to be their best self. It’s not about giving ultimatums, it’s about looking honestly at your own life too. Sometimes you can stay with a negative person who insults you, never seems to appreciate what you do, doesn’t even look at you when you speak to them and this can become “normal” for you too. This can be because you’re repeating old patterns and beliefs from your upbringing, this is how my Mum spoke to my Dad, or Dad to my Mum, or how I was spoken to and treated by an aunt or uncle. As a child we can only do so much, especially if it’s a caregiver displaying these behaviours, but as an adult we are responsible to how we feel and who we have around us.

I have listened to so many stories from people of all ages, some in their 60’s and 70’s who have a living parent, how the mother or father still speaks to them how they did when they were growing up. They’ve accepted this is how it is, because they never have thought there is another way. Even though they could have gone on to have a successful career (many are still seeking approval of parent’s this is why they have to do so well) or moved from one relationship to the next, never really knowing why they break apart, or not knowing why they feel so low. Breaking the pattern is easier than you might think it is.

How to raise your positive vibrations

Spend 10 minutes of your day, while you’re in the shower, before you get up on a morning, while you’re sipping your morning tea.
Close your eyes. Think about 3 things you are grateful for that is in your life right now. One of them being a very small thing like the breeze on your face or the sound of the wind in the trees, or the rain against the window.
After that think of yourself and imagine positive energy and light going through the top of your head and going to every part of you, into your heart, to your fingers and toes, all through every cell of your body. Then think of that positive energy going to your partner, your children, your dog or cat. Then extend that out to your friends and other members of your family, think only positive thoughts about them. Send them love and caring. Then extend that out to your clients at work, anyone that you have met, people living far away, people you haven’t met who could be going through a tough time that you’ve heard about. Remember only positive thoughts, not about their situation, just sending them good vibrations and love.
Then see a situation that has been troubling you, or you haven’t worked to a solution yet. Just notice it, let it play in your head and see it resolving without you having to do anything. Watch it over and over until it becomes accepted by you that this is how it is.
Repeat this everyday and you will notice by improving your inner world, impacts positively on your outer world and people around you.

Nurture and give yourself what you need. If you need to talk to someone, do it.
I’m determined to break down any remaining stigma attached to mental health. I’ve developed a Mindful Massage that addresses the body’s stress response to old patterns, beliefs and experiences, clearing negative thought patterns with energy work, and releasing tension in muscles and ligaments with hot stones and remedial massage. I’ve had phenomenal results from many happy people.

Do what you need to get what you want from your life, you’re in control.

With these simple steps you can have healthy & happy kids

By changing a few of the basics, that may have got lost along the way, you could change a child’s whole world. You can’t rewrite the past, but you can start a whole new way today.

1. Always smile when they enter a room or walk towards you. Make them feel they’re the best thing you’ve seen all day.

2. Think positive thoughts about them, even when you’re not with them. We’re so physically and emotionally linked to our children, they will feel the positive energy coming their way.

3. We ask our children to be kind to their siblings and friends. So we need to say kind words to them. Always ask yourself, is it kind and true. If it’s not, don’t think it, so you won’t say it.

4. Teach children consequence instead of punishment. If they break something out of anger, this could be the time they need your understanding the most. From their action, there is a consequence, they need to clean up the mess, fix what’s broken, which will in turn fix what’s inside them too. Talk to them.

5. If your child is in a bad mood, it’s not an opportunity for you to lecture. Give them time and a quiet calm down space to reflect on how they feel, but say you’re there to talk when they’re ready.

6. A child behaves as a direct reflection on how they’re feeling. Learn to recognise the subtle signs before a meltdown. It’s best to distract and redirect an angry outburst when it’s rating 1 or 2 on the scale, with a cuddle, calming tones or gentle suggestions, than to control a 9 to 10 massive situation.

7. Spend at least 10 minutes a day complimenting your children. This will create a sense of self worth, and watch how they’ll spread that positivity to others, because it will be normal to think positive instead of negative.

8. Lead by example, drink lots of water, eat good whole food, exercise together, laugh and have fun. Deal with what’s stressing you, show them it’s ok to ask for help.

9. Show your children, your nieces and nephews, your neighbours children, you don’t have to be the expert at everything, but you have a responsibly to be the best version of yourself possible.

The how to guide for enjoying the Festive Season.

We all know Christmas can be the most stressful times of the year. It doesn’t take much to push us over the edge. From a bauble out of place, to a turkey dinner brunt to a crisp, because you’ve locked yourself out of the house!!.

Adding visiting relatives to the mix, that are staying with you for what seems like weeks, but in fact is a matter of days, can almost bring divorce and carnage to your otherwise ‘reasonably’ calm household.

Feelings of being overwhelmed and overloaded are all too common. But don’t jump off the ledge, don’t even dangle your feet. There’s always a solution.

Here’s a very quick 4 step routine you can do, everyday to maximise your good mood. It’s best to start it, as early as when you open the first door on the advent calendar, so you can train your mind into being positive. But any day you start is better than not starting at all.

1. Start the day with good intention

Upon waking, no matter how much sleep you’ve had, ask yourself some positive questions…

“Why is today the day good things are going to happen?”
“Why are all these amazing events happening in my life that I am truly thankful for?”
“Why am I feeling so fit and healthy today?”
“How can it get any better than this?”

Our minds love things to work out. Asking a positive question instructs our mind to respond with “Oh you want good things to happen today and be fit and healthy, I can do that” By ending with “How can it get any better than this” instructs our mind to find ways of making our life even better than it is already. This may not work on the first day, but stick with it, set your intent and your will be rewarded.

2. Good morning routine

Take a moment to recognise what is important to you, to start the day right. If a morning shower is needed for you to feel human, make sure you make time for it. Set the alarm ten minutes earlier, do that first before you get bogged down with other tasks that other people need you to do.

Carve out a bit of time to do some yoga stretches or deep breathing. A five minute morning mediation, can put your mind and body on a positive path and help elevate stress throughout the day.

3. Take regular mind breaks

If you have a “monkey mind” worrying about work, relatives, end of school year kids performances to find costumes for, Christmas shopping to buy, no money in the bank account, credit card up to the max, seeming like no way out. You need to remember you can’t be as effective running on emotional empty.

Set at least a few minutes aside every couple hours to say

“STOP, I choose to stop this negative spiral”

Think of your main worry, rate the worry out of 10 (10 being the worst it can be). This is your SUDS rating (Subjective Unit of Distress rating). Really own the problem, know how you know it’s troubling you, really feel it, hear it, see it. Then using two fingers, tap the acupressure points shown on the diagram or imagine the pressure of your fingers (this is a handy tip if you’re in a crowded room).

Gently tap at the inner edge of your eyebrow, say release and let go
At the side of the eye, release and let go
Under the eye, release and let go
On the collar bone, release and let go
Then take a deep breath in and out, hold onto your wrist and say “peace”
In your mind go to a restful memory you have on the beach, or something that made you happy today or some other time.

Go back and check the worry you had, rate it out of 10 again. If it’s gone down, good, keep doing this routine until it’s down to 1 or 0.

If it’s gone up, that’s fine, it shows you’re identifying with it. Repeat the routine again. Make sure you stay on the same worry, as your mind will try to bring in other references to a similar problem. Clear one at a time. Once you’re feeling calmer about this issue, move onto another one, repeat the process.

Always finish on a good memory. Training your mind to recognise stress and how you feel, releasing it from your body and then setting your mind onto a positive thought pattern, enables the neurons to reconnect. This is Neuro plasticity, brain training. Like anything, the more you practice, the easier it becomes.

Feeling good is a skill you can master, even in highly stressful situations. Instead of feeling down and heavy at certain times of year, because lots of bad experiences have happened you can train your mind to feel positive.

This technique is about fully acknowledging them, owning how you feel, then letting it go and feeling relaxed and accepting. Thus leading to feeling good and happy.

4. Happy ever after

At the end of the day, go through any events that you got angry about, or regretted, or didn’t turn out the way you would have wished and for each one in turn say to yourself…

“I am thankful for the knowledge and wisdom I now have. I forgive myself, I forgive others, I’m sorry, I love you”

If you find yourself resisting forgiveness of something you or someone did, recognise what that means to you, where you feel it, what you see and hear. Then repeat the process.
Adding tapping to this routine (see point 3) will speed up the process to feeling calm.

You could also, watch in your mind the negative experience being pushed away across a calm ocean, taking deep breathes and then bring it back again. Imagine yourself floating on the ocean, gently rocking and soothing yourself. Check how you feel and push it away again. Each time the memory should feel better, until you can accept it and feel good in yourself.

There’s also the book technique. Dr Caroline Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist, says our mind is a reference library, any memories we have are stored in files. We can choose to put any unresolved issues into a book, close it and place it on a high shelf and leave it there until we have time and energy to look at it.

We then take down a beautiful book, with fantastic pictures and memories in it and leave this open at the side of us while we sleep.

The last thing we say to ourselves before we drift off, is “tomorrow is going to be a good day where I will feel happy, content and at peace with myself”

I’d love to hear of any techniques you use to calm your “monkey mind”.

Karen 🙂

Who will I be?

When I was a small girl, I knew exactly what to say when anyone asked “what do you want to do when you grow up Karen?” Outwards I’d say, nurse, doctor, lorry driver” Inside I’d say quite simply “I want to change the world”. Now I wasn’t stupid. If I’d said that to the unsuspecting Aunt, neighbour or even school teacher, they would have thought I was deluded. [Read more…]